Severe weather warning in the UK as Storm Barra arrives on Tuesday | severe weather

[ad_1]

The Met Office issued severe weather warnings for most of the UK ahead of Storm Barra’s arrival on Tuesday, with thousands of homes still without power for more than a week after Storm Arwen.

Yellow weather warnings were put in place across England, Wales and Northern Ireland for Tuesday, with yellow snow warnings in place for southern and western Scotland.

Storm Barra, a deep area of ​​low pressure moving from the Atlantic and the second named storm of the season, is expected to bring the strongest winds and impacts to the Republic of Ireland.

2 to 5 cm of snow is expected to accumulate widely across England and Scotland, but meteorologists have said this could be as much as 10 cm, particularly in parts of the southern highlands and highlands.

Winds of 45-50mph are expected across the UK, with 60-70mph in exposed coastal sites, which could affect engineers’ ability to return power to homes.

The Energy Network Association (ENA) said 3,190 homes are awaiting reconnection as of 2 p.m. Sunday, down from 4,025 homes Sunday morning.

Most of the affected homes are in the north-east of England, the agency added.

During a visit to the Powergrid North Communications Center in Penshaw, near Sunderland, Energy Minister Kwasi Quarting warned electricity companies that the government would review their operations after continuing outages caused by Storm Irwin nine days ago.

“I think we can make the system more flexible. We will do a review, we will see if the distribution companies have enough infrastructure, and we may have enforcement actions if necessary.”

After visiting crews in Weardale, County Durham, the energy secretary said engineers were working in frigid temperatures to restore the power supply: “There are very challenging conditions.

“There is a lot of ice, sleet, and snow, and it is very difficult for engineers to set up and equip critical infrastructure.

“Some of the communication hasn’t been great. It’s very difficult in a center or hub like this to tell what’s going on on the ground, but I think that’s getting better.

“I think the engineers are doing a great job, we’ve also taken out the military and they’re all really pulling together, but there are still a few hundred people that are still out of power and I think that’s really unacceptable.”

Kwarteng said he disagreed that the response to the Storm Arwen power outage would have been quicker if it had occurred in southeast England: “The physical infrastructure, planning and landscape are very different. One particular reason we don’t put people back to the power source is the conditions. The weather is very difficult [with] People are in sparsely populated areas, in very rural areas, and that is a challenge.”

[ad_2]